When receiving an email from an unknown sender, the reputability of the email address vis-à-vis the sender can be unclear. Email may be checked against a contacts list, spam whitelist, or spam blacklist. However, these techniques do not assess the characteristics of the email domains.
Any website that accepts content submissions from the public (e.g. blogging sites, social networking sites, publication sites, wikis, etc.) has to find a balance between keeping the site accessible to encourage submissions, and protecting against fraudulent or vandalizing behavior. One example of vandalism is the widespread issue of “wikibots”, computer programs that post unwanted and often irrelevant advertising on generally accessible wiki pages.
Wiki websites have 3 basic options: i) leave the site generally open to anonymous users; ii) require users to register with an email address and verify ownership of that email address before posting content; iii) require that content be reviewed before it is posted. Option 1 offers no protection from vandalism. Option 2 makes life a little more difficult for vandals, but is easily overcome. Option 3 is relatively difficult as it is time-intensive and costly to review content.
Some domain registry systems may assign reputation values to different registered internet domains based on user feedback or some computational algorithm. These registry systems only provide reputation information for internet domains registered by that particular registry service. Even the registered domains will not have reputation information unless the registry service receives feedback or data input identifying previous actions associated with the registered domains. When domain feedback or data input is available, the registry service then automatically generates reputation values that correspond with the feedback information. Thus, current domain reputation assignment systems only cover certain internet domains. For example, while a domain registry system may assign a reputation on a .com domain, it cannot compare a .edu or a .gov (or potentially a .cn) domain with a .com
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.